Comms problems can happen to 100k$ drones too , even Navy has to face such losses. So choose well.
The Navy lost four submersible unmanned drones over the weekend in the Chesapeake Bay near Norfolk, Va., and is asking the public for help in finding the errant torpedo shaped drones.
Price: US$ 99.00 (and maybe lower after logging in on the Hobbyking website or if you are a premium member).
For details: http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/store/uh_viewItem.asp?idProduct=11656
Making boards of the complexity of the ArduPilot IMU shield takes more than a pick & place machine. It also requires a test jig to verify that every board is working before it's shipped out. Here's a board from the first batch being tested. Those pins inbetween the two red boards are called pogo pins, and they're spring loaded, allowing us to just press the new board on the top to make an electrical connection.
Here's a shot from the side. The board in the middle is running the test code:
This is the one Sparkfun uses for the ArduPilot Mega main board, which they gave us so we could make our own main boards, too. Sparkfun makes the best test jigs and they've taught us a lot. Yay Sparkfun!
The final product! ArduPilot Mega IMU shields getting ready to be shipped out--is there anything more beautiful?
And did my first try with non-autonomous flight :
;)
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| Popular Science (1/6/10) Boyle, Rebecca |
A New York University researcher is building a series of robotic fish that could enter into a school of real fish and take over their maneuvers. It could herd the fish away from dangers, such as underwater turbines. The research the leader fish robot is based on determined that the fish in the school that beats its tail fastest is the one that gets the attention of a school.
No word yet on which IMU or Kalman filter they've chosen.
Yesterday, Steve Jobs announced the iPhone 4g... and to my ears, he was really announcing not the latest phone from apple, but the "iDrone". As I heard him talk about the new gyro built into the phone... I started adding the feature set... a fast CPU, lots of memory, built in GPS, compass, accelerometer and now a gyro... of course it could pilot a UAV!
With the built in cameras, it could do photo and video recon... and since it has two cameras (provided they can both be made to operate at the same time), add a couple of mirrors and the craft could do 3D images in real time... to assist in terrain mapping or landing.
It sports a good set of software development tools and on the whole, probably weighs less than all of the same components placed together, and at only $200 it's ecoconomical.
This is a project that could really get off the ground!
Hello all, I've been toying around with the MikroKopter Hexakopter as a tool for aerial mapping and photogrammetry. After a few weeks of learning the ins and outs of the system, I finally had some time on the weekend to test the system for mapping.
In short, we placed Ground Control Points (GCPs) around a man-made ponding area at roughly ten meter intervals (~40 x 30 m in total area). The GCPs were shot in with a deferentially-corrected GPS (~0.1 m horizontal and ~0.2m vertical resolution) and with a Total Data Station (>0.03m vertical and horizontal resolution). We then flew the Hexakopter at 40m above the ground surface in an east-west grid pattern with a photograph being taken straight down every 10 m or so. The camera used was an off the self Canon A540.
The photographs were processed to remove most distortion and dropped into a photogrammetry program. A 0.05 m resolution DEM and 0.02 m photomosaic was created from 22 images. It took about two hours to collect the photographs, and shoot in the GCPs with both the DGPS and TDS. Processing of the imagery was nearly flawless and took about two hours as well. This time can probably be reduced to an hour or less.
Compared to doing this same process with a kite or blimp, I am very impressed with the Mikrokopter (and multi-copters in general) as a platform for high resolution, low altitude mapping. Let me know what you think.
Over the next few weeks, I'll be testing the same process in at a couple of archaeological sites in the southwestern US. I'll share some of those results when they are complete.
Can't wait to play with the truly opensource Ardupilot!
-Mark
From the product listing (I've pinged them for more info and a price):
"Clairvoyance" UAV is an small electrically powered UAV and it is to be used in Short-range surveillance.It plays an important role in reconnaissance and aerial photography equipped with Webcam,digital camera and microwave devices. It is compact, lightweight, and it is also easy to operate and maintain. During flight operation, it can fly according to the scheduled routes and the adjustable waypoints.Data and images can be transmitted at the same time.Horizontal resolution of the Webcam :420 TV lines. Effective Communication Distance :20km. It is a tactical reconnanissance UAV with national advanced level which recently launched by our company.
wingspan: 1100mm
Body length: 900mm
Load: 200g
Take-off gross weight: 2200g
maximum thrust:1350g
Cruising speed: 40-60km/h
flying height: 20-2000m
Endurance: 20-50min
Maximum wind: 4
Landing: hand rolls"
Photo credit: Wired January 2006 article on Stanley, Stanford's entry into the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.01/stanley.html
